The Western world’s heart once again breaks for France, which has now suffered two massive and deadly terrorist attacks in the space of just eight months.
Between these two massacres and the March attack at the Brussels airport, nearly 250 people have been murdered in recent terrorist terrorist attacks in western Europe.
All indications are that this attack, like the others, was at least inspired by Islamic fanaticism, if not directly coordinated with the Islamic State. After plowing his semi into a crowd of Bastille Day revelers, killing at least four dozen people including ten children, the perpetrator began firing at the survivors and shouted the Islamic mantra “God is great” before being shot by police.
If there is any advantage the French people have in coping with such a dangerous environment, it is that their leaders lack the lazy shortcut that President Obama and Hillary Clinton chose immediately after the similarly deadly massacre that occurred recently in Orlando. American Democrats have shown they can mollify at least their own supporters about the threat of radical Islamic terrorism by hiding it behind boilerplate rhetorical platitudes about gun control.
In sharp contrast to Obama’s complacent, business-as-usual speech after the Orlando attack, French President Francois Hollande has to show results. Unlike Obama, he has already been forced to change his government’s footing, invoking the emergency powers that his nation’s constitution permits and urging his countrymen, with a sense of national purpose, to “absolute vigilance.”
Whether or not his efforts amount to anything, the French socialist has at least felt an obligation to show voters that he takes an attack on his country seriously.
There is no easy answer to attacks inspired by the Islamic State. Both the White House and Clinton have adopted a new talking point — that as it comes under military pressure in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State will inevitably succeed in launching more and more such attacks.
This may prove true, but it seems very difficult to apply this explanation to attacks that don’t involve direct coordination with their military leadership in Raqqa. Lone wolf jihadists like the Sacramento and Orlando killers are, by definition, not privy to the strategy or precise needs of the caliphate. So far, there is no evidence that the Nice killer was either, so it seems quite premature to argue that he acted in response to the group’s defeats on the battlefield.
The Islamic State’s own propaganda strives to inspire this brand of isolated terrorist to act on its behalf. If the group’s message is to be taken seriously, these killers take inspiration from the Islamic State’s reality and formidability — its existence as a true state that actually governs territory, makes laws and fields what passes for a conventional army. The more nimble but shapeless guerrilla efforts of al Qaeda never succeeded in inspiring so many deadly plots.
Obama responded to the attack with a quick condemnation, and a declaration that “we will not be deterred” in fighting terrorism. But he only faces this problem now because of his administration’s insistence on leaving a massive power vacuum when he evacuated all U.S. forces from Iraq against the advice of military leaders and his own secretary of defense. His subsequent, consistent underestimation of the “jayvee” team that is now wreaking havoc all over the Western world also came despite warnings from the intelligence services.
It’s too late for an admission of error in this regard to be helpful. But if Obama wants to stem the tide of Islamic State terrorism, he is going to have to step up military efforts in Syria and Iraq, offering whatever aid and weaponry Kurdish forces request, and removing the restrictive rules of engagement that have made U.S. airstrikes in the region less effective than they might be otherwise. If Orlando did not convince him that this rump caliphate cannot be allowed to continue operations into 2017, hopefully the attack in Nice will shake off his complacency.
